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“And I’ll bet she will. You know what she’s like. When it comes down to it, it’s family first, always. And if she won’t talk to you, for whatever silly reason, I’ll have a crack at her. She’s always liked me.”

Odelia smiled.“I dare you to call Gran and to recruit her as a police spy inside Laron Weskit’s operation.”

“You’re on,” said Chase, and took out his phone. Moments later Gran picked up.

“Oh, hey, Vesta,” said Chase, giving Odelia a wink. “I wanna ask you a big favor.”

Chapter 26

We still strongly felt as if we’d let Odelia down. So the four of us agreed to return to the hotel as soon as the house was quiet, and see if we couldn’t have another look at those hotel rooms.

“Odelia is counting on us,” said Dooley.

“Yes, she is,” Brutus agreed. “But she’s simply too nice to tell us how she really feels. How we all let her down terribly.”

“I think we owe it to her to give it another shot,” said Harriet.

We were all in agreement. And so it was decided. The moment Odelia and Chase were sound asleep we all snuck out of the house and set paw for downtown Hampton Cove, where the Hampton Cove Star awaited. Unfortunately Odelia had retrieved the keycards she’d given us, so we wouldn’t be able to use them to get in. But we’re cats. Somehow or other we always manage to get where we need to be.

So we trudged along the sidewalk, the hour long past midnight, and soon found ourselves in the heart of town. Across the street from the Star is Kingman’s General Store, though I should probably say Kingman’s human’s General Store. Of course at this time of night the store was closed, and of Kingman there was no sign.

“Probably in the park for cat choir,” said Dooley, following my gaze.

“They’ll all be in the park for cat choir,” said Harriet. “Except for me, and to be absolutely honest, I’ll probably never go to cat choir again.”

“But why, sugar biscuit?” asked Brutus. “I thought you did pretty well tonight.”

“Didn’t you see the horrified looks on people’s faces? And didn’t you hear the laughter when my performance was over? They hated me—probably thought it was the most ridiculous thing they’d ever seen or heard.”

“I don’t think so, snow bunny. I think they were surprised, that’s all. They’ve never seen that kind of performance before. And you know what people are like. They hate whatever’s new—at least at first. But give them some time and they’ll appreciate your performance for what it was: refreshing and adorable.”

“Oh, Brutus, my snickerdoodle, you always know exactly what to say to cheer me up.” Then her shoulders sagged. “But I still think it was terrible, and by now word will have spread through Hampton Cove’s cat community and soon they’ll all be laughing like hyenas. No, I’m never going to cat choir again and that’s my final word.”

We’d been staring up at the hotel while Harriet shared her self-critique with us, and suddenly I was struck by an idea. “Why don’t we try the fire escape?” Once, not all that long ago, Dooley and I had managed to get into the hotel that way.

And so we quickly crossed the road, ducked into a side alley and arrived at the back of the hotel. And there, gleaming and majestic, was a metal fire escape. We scaled the wire mesh staircase and soon arrived on the fourth-floor platform. Unfortunately it was one of those doors that only open from the inside, with a push bar. And since there was no one to push on this particular bar, we were stuck. But then Harriet decided to use her secret weapon: a repeat performance of tonight’s song, and this time we were four, not two, with Dooley, myself and Brutus provided backing vocals.

It must have made quite an impression, for very quickly a window to one of the rooms opened and a shoe whizzed through the night and hit me smack in the head.

“Ouch!” I said.

But seeing as this appeared to be the price to pay for achieving greatness, I didn’t let up and kept on howling away. More windows opened, and more shoes zoomed through the air. Few of them hit their targets, except a big boot that hit Brutus in the back.

“Hey, watch it, you brute!” he yelled.

And then, finally, the moment we’d all been waiting for arrived: a sleepy-looking little girl opened the door. Rubbing her eyes, she said, “Mommy? It’s the cat from the show.”

“Come back to bed, honey,” a woman’s voice sounded from halfway down the hallway.

“But it’s the pretty white cat from the show, mommy. And she’s singing again.” She bent over and petted Harriet, who purred up a storm in response.

“Annabella! Back to bed!” the same voice came back, and Annabella, after a moment’s hesitation—the sight of Harriet, a star performer, was clearly very enticing—she ran along to her mother. Soon all was quiet once more. Except this time the door was open, and so we quickly entered.

“Great work, angel bunny,” said Brutus. “You nailed it.”

“I think I’m improving, though, don’t you think?” said Harriet.

“With leaps and bounds,” said her ever-loyal boyfriend.

“I think our backing vocals made a big impression, too,” said Dooley.